


take me home

by funwars



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Also theyre married, M/M, Major Character Fake Death, because its canon bc i said so, i would tag it major character death but come on its kingsman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 21:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15849408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funwars/pseuds/funwars
Summary: Harry regrets not knowing Merlin's favorite artist.





	take me home

It echoes in Harry’s head long after the world comes back from the brink of destruction a second time. He can’t shake it, like the slight tremble in his hands due to his injuries, a butterfly that bounces around his head and won’t dislodge itself no matter what. When he leans out of the porch in their— _ his— _ home, staring out into the long grass gently blowing in the wind. 

“It’s John  _ Denver.” _

Of course it was John Denver. Of fucking  _ course.  _ He remembers teasing Merlin, in their early days of Kingsman, for humming “Rocky Mountain High” in the hallway. Knocking into his shoulder, nearly toppling the clipboard out of his hands—”I thought you had better taste than that.”

“Aye, sadly, I don’t.”

Their wedding, if Harry could even call it that. Merlin handing his ring to Harry to show off the private communications line and how it twists into a damned  _ laser _ of all things. (He wonders, looking at his hands hanging over the wooden balcony, what if their rings were just regular wedding rings?) Harry holding the ring between his fingers before looking up and saying, “Let’s get married at lunch.”

“What?” Merlin asks, blinking up at Harry, “We’re already married.”

“Officially. I know we can’t have any papers and identities outside of Kingsman but...can’t we file some paperwork? Make it official, at least in this small circle?”

Merlin gapes for a moment before shutting his mouth and turning to his computer—Harry is worried for half a second, before:

“We don’t have any official marriage forms on-file, but I’m sure we can whip something up in an hour.”

Merlin had hummed the beginning of “Country Roads” as the forms printed, with two minutes of lunch to spare, and they shared a kiss over the printer.

A night where a song that Harry doesn’t remember the name of drifted out of Merlin’s office and he knew something was wrong.  Merlin never slips up and leaves his door open, let alone plays his own music during work time.

“You left your door open,” Harry said as he walked slowly through the door, and he didn’t jump when it slid shut behind him.

“My father passed today,” Merlin sighed, head rested in his hand as he watched the agent running on the screen, “he took me to my first concert. One of the only good things he did for me, I suppose.”

A rare night where the two of them were both home reasonably early—no work looming over them, a glimpse at a normal life in between the madness. The radio playing from inside their house, music drifting through the screen door onto their patio where they rested. “Country Roads” comes on and whether Merlin realizes it or not, a small smile breaks out on his face; his head is tilted back on the chair, face up to the sky, eyes shut against the world.

It hits him like a shotgun to the chest. This brief glimpse into a life where there was none of the stress of being an elite spy—no agents, no technology, no constant threat of danger—and they could just...be. Friends, lovers,  _ husbands. _ No espionage. No dual purpose wedding rings.

“Hamish?” Harry breaks the silence but Merlin doesn’t open his eyes, just hums in acknowledgement—it makes Harry’s heart swoop for a reason he doesn’t know. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Merlin says, the first words he’s said in hours, as he opens his eyes and smiles over at Harry, “what’s all this?”

“Am I not allowed to love my lawfully wedded husband?”

Merlin scoffs, tilts his head back to the sky, “Nothing we’ve done has ever been lawful.”

“Do you ever wonder what it might be like, though? Being  _ lawful _ ?”

Merlin sighs as he sits up, leaning over the arm of the chair to grab one of Harry’s hands in his own. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

* * *

If he could cry, he would. Harry doesn’t know when his emotions fully detached themselves—maybe it came with being an agent, seeing your friends die, parting with a family that didn’t care all that much so many years ago.

Instead he stares out over the road in front of him, the cars making their way about their business, continuing their lives exactly the way Harry doesn’t know how. His heart, his  _ body  _ aches for a sense of normalcy, and it’s a few more minutes before Harry has to tear himself away and pour himself a glass of whisky to dull the shaking in his hands.

So, he does what he knows. He works on rebuilding Kingsman. Goes through what Merlin taught him—the secret, encrypted list of any sleeper agents or branches of Kingsman left unharmed by the effects of Poppy. Eggsy gets Roxy back shortly after Statesman announces the new partnership, and it’s nice to see them pal around again, to have something remotely normal among all the chaos of a new business and a new country.

They’re having a meeting around the table, a rather boring one about how to relocate Kingsman to somewhere less risky (two secret services in the same central location isn’t smart, he  _ gets it) _ , when something crackles. A loud, electronic sound that startles everyone into position to attack. Harry, too, one of his hands ready to grab the gun tucked under his arm, until he hears it—another, longer crackle, coming from somewhere below him. It’s not...it couldn’t.

“It’s alright, everyone calm down,” Harry says, movements slow to hide his whole body shaking with the possibilities, “I’ve just got to excuse myself for a moment. Please, continue without me, I trust Eggsy to speak on my behalf.”

If any of them start to protest, he’s out the door before he can hear anything. Has someone found Merlin’s ring? Is it  _ Merlin?  _ After a month...it feels unlikely, but who is he to talk about unlikely situations.

The ring pops, makes static for a few seconds, and goes silent. “Hello?” Harry says, turning some heads as he pulls open the nearest door and locks himself inside, “Can someone hear me? Hello?”

It takes a few minutes that stretch into days, and there’s some rustling noises and more static that come from the ring. Silence overtakes the room, and all Harry can hear is his heart pounding in his ears, until:

“ _ Test, test. Did I finally get this damn thing working?” _

Harry wants to sob. Scream, maybe. Break his damn wedding ring all over again.

“Hamish?”

“ _ Oh, thank fuckin’ Christ. Harry, I’m so sorry I couldn’t get through sooner—” _

“You’re alive.”

The relief in his voice must be palpable through even a busted microphone, because he can hear Merlin sigh softly.

“We didn’t even check before we left.” Harry has to lean against a wall, the ringing in his ears after the mine explosion fresh in his mind. “ _ Hamish _ , we would have—I didn’t—”

_ “It’s in the past now, Harry. And we can talk about it when you get here.” _

So they go. A small hospital not too far from the remains of Poppy Land, and it’s the longest seventeen hours of his life. He’s quiet, which scares Eggsy (who tagged along and refused to do otherwise). He bounces his knee or paces around, and waits for Merlin’s voice to come through his ring again to quell the anxiety threatening to boil over at any moment.

“You alright?” Eggsy asks as they prepare for landing; Harry has reverted to staring out the window and watching the scenery approach once again.

“I’ve been better.”

He thinks about the time he spent in that padded room at Statesman. How long he was there was a bit fuzzy—months of living in a world that Harry Hart wasn’t  _ really  _ who he was. Merlin lived with the reality that Harry was  _ dead,  _ he had watched the live footage of Harry being shot in the  _ head— _ Harry hasn’t been able to cope with Merlin being dead for a damn month. Maybe it was all of Kingsman going with him; Harry has never been too good at handling his emotion, he supposes.

Despite everything, the month of  _ aching,  _ he hangs behind Eggsy. Getting into the hospital is no problem (they are family, after all), yet he finds himself lingering in the hallway leading up to Merlin’s room. For fear of...what? Change?

Eggsy places a hand on Harry’s shoulder and gives him a look, a silent nod that he’ll wait outside to give them their space. Harry, as much as he wants to steel himself with a deep breath and a shake of his arms, nods in return and pushes open the door.

Merlin is sitting upright in his bed, a notebook in one hand as he writes with the other, and Harry can trick himself into normalcy for a moment. But unfortunately, he’s trained to notice things—the wheelchair, the obvious amputations.

“I am...so sorry,” are the first words out of Harry’s mouth, and Merlin looks up and smiles at him.

“I did what I had to do, you dolt.”

Harry laughs a wet laugh and is quick to go over to the side of the bed and hug Merlin, make sure he’s flesh and bones, not another figment of his imagination.

“I’m sorry I forgot about John Denver,” Harry mumbles into Merlin’s shoulder, and Merlin tightens his grip when he hears the shakiness of his voice.

“That’s what you were worried about?”

Harry pulls back to look at Merlin, hands on either side of his face as he smiles sadly. “I couldn’t live with myself knowing that such a big part of you, of  _ us _ , was lost to my damned head injury.”

“When people said getting old was a mess, I didn’t think it would be like this.”

Harry snorts and kisses Merlin quickly, resting their foreheads together. “I know, you look like you lost weight.”

Merlin shoves Harry as hard as he can. “I’m going to kick your ass.”

Harry raises his eyebrows at Merlin, and it takes the latter a moment to realize his wording, before he’s groaning and burying his face in his hands. “You know what I mean.”


End file.
